I finished things! I FINISHED THINGS! It’s been so uncommon for me to actually bring a story to an end in the last– well, you can look back at the posts. I’m belatedly going a little bit into shock over this. They’ve been done for a few days now. Everything has been so bananas, though. Whole bowls of fruit, really. And it’s probably not my best work, but I’m just so delighted to have SOMETHING- three THINGS- done to offer you for All Hallow’s Read! Posted the stories earlier from my phone, but didn’t get a chance to write this post, so this is kind of a post-Halloween gift. Oh, weeeeeell, here it all is! Tada!

I actually almost had four things to post! Work happened, though. All month, I’ve had the picture of Neil Gaiman with the text “You should be writing.” as my desktop image on my work computer. It is strangely effective. It also helped that a number of friends who are similarly of a writerly persuasion wanted to get together to share stories for Halloween, too. My husband also wanted to take our stories to read to children, and that was very helpful.

I’m really liking this thing where having people request to put that pressure on you (“you” being me) actually motivates instead of sending you-me spiraling into fits of frozen terror at the thought of doing anything at all while someone hovers near fully expecting and ready to catch. I have nothing to pitch. I have so many things I could pitch if they’d just hold still. What even is pitching? I am the ball.

But then there were THINGS! That happened! It’s so nice. I was actually beginning to worry that I’d lost my mental story crafting limb. I don’t know that I can properly express how relieved I am that it’s still there.

Aaaanyway!

Work is still happening, actually. Briefly visiting family for Halloween and then on to a day-job-related conference. I feel like such an adult. It feels weird.

Writing adventures. Fruit adventures. Work adventures. So much adulting adventures.

So it’s been a while. (Apparently, yes, all my blog posts will start this way now.) The wordpress swears it’s been 9 months. I could have grown a baby in that time. I did not. There is not a baby. Except I wrote something that is longer than a line for the first time in a while. After failing miserably to keep chugging along on the last few things, I thought I should share. I offer it to you. Because space.

I really shouldn’t say I failed, because that implies that I’ve given up and have zero intention of touching those things again. I haven’t. I have all of the intention. I will touch them firmly, tenderly, with love. My friend got me thinking about how I’ve never attempted a romance novel. I’m trying to figure out if I could write one, just to see. I’ve read a couple of supernatural romance books? Are those typical romance? I don’t really know if I can deal with it. Maybe I’ll just write a story and romance will just kind of happen. This probably won’t end well. ONE THING AT A TIME. Soooo, yes, intentions. Which amount to very little if I don’t actually, you know, pick up a freaking pen.

Am I scared of pens now?

Two jobs briefly became just the one full-time job at the print shop where once I was a little work-study, by the way. And now it seems I’m working two jobs again as the Chinese restaurant is ever short handed, so I’m there once a week. Which I’m okay with, because you can see all kinds of things in how people interact where a meal is involved. Also, I like having the extra cash. And exciting lunches that I’m never certain of what they’re made. I like both jobs, but I should probably push to keep it to the one. I’m tired a lot.

To be fair, I have picked up pens. I’ve sat and written snippets of sentences before I got– stuck, for lack of a better word. It’s not like there isn’t a lot in my head. It’s more like everything gets kind of muddled, or the thoughts get nervous and confused, like birds that suddenly get disoriented, and then they can’t remember how to get out. And I can’t do anything except keep poking them with a stick through the slats of their little bird house trying to organize them and direct them toward the door. They’re not being very cooperative.

I thought about buying really cute stationary in order to motivate myself, but I’d never use it. I’d want to keep it clean and safe and save it for just the right thoughts, and I’d go find sticky notes that would inevitably get jumbled up or lost or eaten by the cat. Maybe I’ll buy cute sticky notes.

I was researching getting help, and then there were kidney stones and work and life. It’s a funny sensation to try to analyze everything going on around you, all the choices you’re making about whether or not and how to engage in those things, to determine if you’re not making excuses to not get help out of fear or stubbornness (what am I even being stubborn about?), and then deciding that, “No, everything here looks like a completely rational decision,” only to then think that of course everything would seem very rational to yourself if you’re the one who rationalized your choices in order to make them in the first place. Just because they’re rational doesn’t mean they’re not coming from that cave or fear and stubbornness and not actually 100% rational at all.

My mother likes to quote “Lion King” at times like this. LIE DOWN BEFORE YOU HURT YOURSELF.

I’m not! I’m not ignoring my blog again! Not for another year! Things have simply been a bit unorganized with my husband and me taking turns to be sick and then holidays and so on. I have a bit more of Beasts, but I don’t have it quite to a point where I feel alright hitting pause to put at least something up. The end is only in sight in that I know it exists. It will happen.

Ah, so I have a New Year’s resolution for the first time in years! To finish things. That’s it. I’m starting with “Beasts”. I’m not picking a second thing to finish ’til I’m finished with that. And then I’ll pick something else. One thing at a time, so I don’t overwhelm myself.

This post was actually going to be a video blog! But after starting and stopping and starting and deleting and arranging a space in which to record repeatedly, then rearranging the space, I came to the conclusion that, no– yes, I really am still shy. I have a sock puppet I had seriously considered using in place of– myself. Me. The sock puppet was going to be me. Anyone who has met me in the last six or seven years would look at me funny were I to describe myself as shy. I’ve mostly managed to find ways around it. (I’m still very proud of myself that I can order at fast food places all by myself now without the urge to dive under the nearest table to pretend I don’t exist!). I thought maybe I was done being shy, then; that I’d grown out of it. Nope. I then think about you handful of folks out there who follow this blog, my twitter, my tumblr– you’re all out there. Actual people. You’re all probably terribly interesting and wonderful. I’d rather you not know I’m out here, too. It’s not the anonymity thing. Obviously you know my name, you’ve seen my face (I think I posted a pic here once without thinking), you’ve read some of my stuff, and yet a video blog feels like meeting new people somehow. It’s a strange mix of being intimidated and afraid you won’t actually like me after all and excited that maybe we’ll be friends, which then makes me anxious for no definable reason except– people. In reality (that place my mind refuses to believe exists), you’ll probably watch the video, or not bother, and then go on and do other things. You might just say, “Huh, it speaks,” and then watch a video of dogs with boxes on their heads or check your email. That’s cool. I’m absolutely alright with that. In the end, I’m ridiculous. I’ll do a video blog. Okay, I have resolution number two.

#1: Finish “Beasts”.

#2: Video.

So there. There’s that. Carry on with your lives, citizens. Hope the New Year is treating you all well thus far. We’re only three days in, you know. Good luck! Much love! Happy adventuring!

Oh! Ah! Okay, so my grandmother died some time back. I had this tape she’d given me of her practicing guitar and singing (she played at church). I’d been trying for a really long time to sit down and get it recorded off the tape into mp3’s for the family, but it just– I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. I finally did thanks to my wonderful husband keeping me company. He’s a good man. Best of all, he’s good at hugs. It really helped that I could share my grandmother with him the way I remember her best, one of the ways I miss her most. Anyway, it’s on soundcloud. I put it up there for easy access for my relatives, but if you’re into Spanish sung church music, there’s that for you.

The best stories I ever wrote as a kid– and then later on, too– were all about death or murder or scary things. That’s what I was drawn to when I picked books to read, so that’s what I wrote. Naturally, I’m a bit crap at writing much else. I mean, you can see it in the one attempt at a “happy ending” that is sitting there in the fiction section of my blog. It got a bit slapdash at the end because I was on a deadline for a class that demanded that I turn in something finished. As it is with most of my stories that get forced endings, I can’t go back to it. I want to. I had a concept I wanted to run with and I fell in love with the tea shop and bakery I’d written. (On a separate note, that shop is an idea I’ve been kicking around since high school that I’d love to bring into being, but I’m not sure how to go about it and I don’t feel I know enough about tea yet for what I’d want to do.) But the story itself, having been cut short, feels wrong. It feels like I’d be trying to resurrect the dead and it would come back like the son in the “Monkey’s Paw”as a thing that is no longer what it once was and could never be what it might have been. I keep that story posted there as a reminder to try harder. I don’t want to only write scary, dismal, morbid stories, as much as I love them. There’s a whole 360 degree scope of human experience, most of which I know nothing about even in the periphery, and it can all exist together. It all frequently exists at once as a little emotional cosmos inside each person. That’s what makes the stories of other people’s lives– fictional or non-fictional– so compelling. I want to write all those stories. I want to write compelling stories. I want to be compelling.

I feel limited in my imagination by my lack of knowledge. I once wanted to study history. I wanted to be an archaeologist or an anthropologist because I wanted to know the stories as they stood from every point of view. I wanted to explore every facet of the lives that no one thought about anymore, but that had been a part of what shaped the here’s and now’s all over the world. And then I realized I just wanted to be a story teller. Maybe a travelling one. But there was that “lack of knowledge” thing, and I felt– I feel that I need to see and do more to be able to fully grasps a lot of things that drive people. I want to understand the internal states and the external possible circumstances that affect even the least considered factors of day to day existence. That’s why I’m happy as a waitress. That’s why I’ve done a lot of things the way I have. It’s hard to explain, and I think harder for a lot of people who worry about what I’m doing with my life to understand, that I’m deliberately not aiming for the structure that is supposed to lead to “success” as it is mostly understood to be (i.e. the safe job with the steady income, carefully managed for a wealthy old age, etc.). I want to be content. Not perpetually happy. Happy happens in between everything else. Happy happens when you strive for who and what you love, which may or may not be always exciting. I want to simply be content with where my life is, okay with where I’ve been, and eager to take on what’s coming my way as much by my own hand as possible. It really is an adventure, and that’s exactly what I’m aiming for. Structures are stationary. I want to keep moving.

I’ve had a number of bits of information shared with me recently about the lives of people I love that take my little heart and twist and makes it shiver from the strain of caring. A lot of it isn’t really anything to get too worked up about, but that there’s the potential for those things to become so much more, so much worse terrifies me. So I write. Except then I have that problem where, like in dreams, the doors start appearing that seem to require opening, and that I can feel I really don’t want to open. The stories start trying to go in directions I didn’t initially have in mind almost of their own volition. And so it’s that problem again. The one that goes like this:

“My characters keep trying to jump off bridges. Perhaps I should make a cup of tea and then try writing again.”

And so I make some tea, maybe a nice chamomile, and try again. And sometimes that means I manage to make the story move past the door. And sometimes it means the words stop playing nice and I have to go sit somewhere to sulk with my tea and watch episodes of “Supernatural” or watch “Lilo & Stitch”, feeling rejected until the words get lonely and want to play again.

Anyway, all of this is really to say that I’m having trouble carrying on with “Beasts” right now. It’s happening. I know where I want it to go. I have scenes playing out in my head. But I’m having trouble forcing it from my hand down the funnel that is my pen. It’s frustrating and it’s making me think about a whole lot of other things that are frustrating, which, of course, just makes things worse. Bother, indeed.

Well, I suppose it’s not an adventure without falling into a few holes and walking into a bit of mental poison ivy. Scrapes and bruises are to be expected. Right, more tea, then off to work.

I’m trying desperately not to be a liar yet again, but as midnight is swiftly approaching much like a booted foot to an unsuspecting (though assuredly deserving) butt, I will post what I have thus far. I fully intend to continue updating through out the night until either the story finishes or I pass out at the keyboard and my poor, wonderful husband has to drag my lifeless (snoring) body off to bed, or at the very least over to the couch. Oh, also posting the excerpt from my current –and currently unnamed– word baby. Happy All Hallow’s Read, folks!

Speaking of babies– My friend had one today! Just in case you were disappointed by this small, shabby gift that I didn’t even bother to even try to wrap in newspaper, at least you can know that someone got something good today. Let’s all be happy for the proud new mama and papa! Happy adventuring, guys!

Update: So about an hour after I got to work adding more to “Beasts” I crashed hard. I don’t even remember going to bed, really, but that’s where I woke up. I will continue writing the story all the same. Husband says to think of it as a serialized piece. I’m grumpy about it, but it is what it is. Bah. Anyway, happy reading and much love, guys! (There are suddenly more of you! Hello!)

Ahahahah, remember when I said I’d be trying to keep up with the blog more and that maybe I’d make video blogs, too, sometimes and that I’d do ALL KINDS OF THINGS? Yeah, about that– Sorry.

It’s seriously almost been a year since I posted an actual blog. Many, many things have happened between then and here. I actually have to look back through the previous posts (and, oh God, Facebook) to see what the hell I’ve been up to since last December. If you’ve been following my Twitter (@LWhoScribbles) at all, I’ve been a tiiiiny bit better about showing signs of life over there– and by signs of life, of course, I mean evidence of my internet fueled writing-delinquency.

Neil says you should be writing

Oh, Tumblr.

That is not to say that I haven’t been scribbling away! Nay, as a matter of fact, I’ve been writing so much more since I quit the coffee bar to which they transfered me after the bakery damn near killed me! (Oh, yeah, that totally happened. And apparently I really, really love playing with the espresso machine! I don’t like / am physically almost incapable of drinking most espresso drinks, but I seriously miss the espresso machine. I just about had that milk steaming thing down!) I’ve been masquarading as a waitress in a Chinese food restaurant since January. It’s surprisingly been a lot of fun and it affords me a lot of time left to my own devices. I’m not getting paid much, but I can contribute to the house funds and the work itself isn’t difficult and my coworkers are all delightful and the boss lady is one of my favorite boss folk ever and they keep me well fed and having the opportunity to interact with all kinds of people on a regular basis is absolutely fascinating. I really like this job.

Anyway, I have several things I’m working on and I actually feel like I might Finish Something. That’s a huge deal to me right now. I just want to finish things and feel like they’re really done and ready for serious editing, AND THEN maybe even draft query letters to put them out into the world for real, for money, like a grown up. A real one. Maybe it’s a pipe dream, but damned if I’m not going to give it a go. This is currently my liiife. I’m pretty happy with it thus far. I’m not going to say a whole lot about each project, because, as I stated in previous posts, I’d prefer not to share things that aren’t complete. I am going to say that for All Hallow’s Read I’m only writing one short story this year and in place of the others I’m going to do the exact opposite of the thing I just said I don’t like doing; I’m going to share a small piece of one of my current babies. I’ll post those by Halloween night for sure. I’ll make it happen. No, really this time.

So there’s that.

In other news, much of the year passed without anything major to share. Job change, birthdays and holidays, one ill advised time-share presentation, friends coming and going to and from various places around the world. James (that guy I married, for those new to the show) got all his wisdom teeth removed and I had to drive for the first time in at least a year since getting my license. (I’m now driving regularly, thank you very much.) James got to keep his wisdom teeth after. They are now riding around in a little blue plastic treasure chest that we’re inexplicably keeping in the car. My sister visited and was the first to stay in our guest / storage room since we moved in over a year ago. We went to Neil Gaiman’s book signing in Dallas for “Ocean at the End of the Lane” where he signed my books and accepted the best origami t-rex I could make. He tried to doodle a t-rex for me very quickly in return. I really can’t say how much the experience meant to me.

Neil accepted the origami t-rex I made for him and tried to draw one for me in return.

That was the same trip on which we hunted down the 24 hour sushi place in downtown Dallas. (Check out Sushi World, guys. The owner is super nice and the food is plentiful at all hours. It’s delightful.) James took me to my first anime convention. It was not everything I’d ever been told about anime conventions, but we had a lot of fun. And most recently we went to Vegas. Strangely claustrophobic, often very loud, but surprisingly walkable and very much a walking sort of place. We bought a book and got it signed at the Mob Museum by one of the authors of “Cullotta”, who just happened to be Frank Cullotta himself. We only thought to wonder who he was after we’d talked with him for a bit and taken a picture with him. He was really nice.

We took a picture with Mr. Frank Cullotta and he personalized one of his books for us before we actually knew who he was.

So, yes, lots of adventuring. Much of it unexpected. Just about all of it pretty shiny (with the exception of the thing with James’ wisdom teeth). I will try my best to update again soon, hopefully with an All Hallow’s Read gift for you all. On to see what else is out there!

What do you say to things like this, this thing in Newtown, CT? There’s a lot you want to say, but the words just don’t seem strong enough. You take slow, shallow breaths. while you process the event, the numbers. Your heart breaks. Twenty-eight dead, twenty children. Just for the human connection it breaks. And you ache for the parents, for their loss. And for a moment, a small, stabbing, quiet moment you choke when you think about the children in your own life. How easily could it be any one of them, all of them? In that one moment, you want so much for it never to be them on either side of the gun that you ache for that, too. And you pray, God or no God– thank God, they’re alright– that it never is them. And you breathe for the living as well as the lost.

Like this:

I’ve locked myself in homework-isolation to work on my last projects for the last two communication classes I will ever take as an undergraduate. (Mostly isolation, anyway, and with debatable success, as you can see.) I’m freaking out a little both with happiness and what-if’s-of-doom and working fairly frantically, trying desperately not to get ahead of myself, too eager for the relief of after. Gah! And these projects are HUGE! So not to be taken lightly. But in the meantime, the world is still going on beyond my stacks of printed articles and make-shift research bunker.

Miss Amanda Fucking Palmer is off making history along with over 100,000 backers on Kickstarter, (100,000+ I’m proud to say I am one of, despite being low on funds). We’ve come together to offer what we can in less than a week, offering beyond what her goal was on the first day. Now her Kickstarter is covered almost 6 times over. The whole shindig is pretty intense. I say that not only as a fan of hers, but as someone who spent the last more or less four years (out of five academic years total) studying the ways in which words and concepts spread amongst people. How people absorb messages, how they respond to them, and how the world, cultures shift because of them, because of what people do with them. It’s incredible and mind blowing. And, on a personal level, heartening to see how music, art easily makes people so happy; how it touches so many that they would give as much as they could to see a plan, little more than a plan, come to fruition. Admittedly, it’s a plan that’s been several years in the making and a making that’s already showing signs of life, has been showing signs of life with updates from Miss AFP herself serving as sonogram pictures for this current art baby. She’s agonized over and loved and nurtured and fought for this project more than a lot of people will probably realize, though she’s been more than open through the whole process and promises to continue to be. She’s willingly made everyone party to her escapades and everyone has willingly gone along for the ride.

A lot of articles want to paint her as an overnight success, or some kind of anomaly because, while she has a strong and obviously dedicated following, she doesn’t often blip on the big media radar. The truth of it is, so many of us fans have been following her since the early days when the Dresden Dolls were active, before Twitter. She’s been sharing herself with us and we’ve come to not only enjoy her art, but respect her and relate to her as a person. We’ve seen we can trust her when she makes promises and that trusting her is always worth it. As a result, it’s not surprising that we share her with everyone else, too. We are comfortable asking our friends, our family, complete strangers to also put their trust in her and join us in supporting her. Social media only made that easier. Once more, we are the media. This is not some incomprehensible, out-of-the-blue event. It isn’t unexplainable magic or voodoo. It’s years of Amanda Palmer cultivating her fan-base, making art and giving love and encouraging a community to grow and make with her. So we did and have and now the explosion that boosted her current Kickstarter is word-of-mouth at its core. It is word-of-mouth surging stronger than people remembered was possible. The same method people have been using since communication began as a thing. It’s life, it’s love, it’s happening. And to quote Miss AFP, “I can’t fucking wait.”

Oh, and speaking of making and sharing, I’ll make sure to post my newest stuff as soon as possible, but there’s no telling whether that will be before or after graduation on the 11th. Wish me luck! So much adventuring!